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Models
Fireball XL5 was Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's first venture into real science fiction (their earlier series, Supercar, was set in the present day, ie., the early 1960s). But Fireball was a space adventure and as such required spaceships and the kind of hardware that made it look like it was filmed in the 21st century (at least by 1962 standards). This required the production team to come up with ways of making models that looked authentic. The sophisticated ways they made and filmed the models became the industry standard - at least, before the advent of CGI. The Andersons' special effects guru was Derek Meddings, who, at the time of making Fireball XL5, was in hs early 30s. His background was steeped in the British film industry - his father had been a carpenter at Denham studios, while his mother had worked for the famous director Alexander Korda. In his late teens, Meddings also found work at Denham studios, initially lettering titles before graduating to working on matte paintings. He met British special effects expert Les Bowie while working at Denham. He first started working with Gerry Anderson in the early days on one of his first series, Torchy the Battery Boy, and was first credited with special effects for Supercar. But Fireball was his first real challenge in terms of model making. Meddings and his team would take common everyday objects - often kitchen utensils - and stick bits and pieces on to them from store-bought model kits. They would then be painted and 'dirtied down' to make them look used. An interesting side-note. Brian Johnson, another special effects expert, was working with Meddings at the time. When he was employed to do special effects for Stanley Kubrick's epic 2001, he took this model-making technique with him. Meddings said later - perhaps a little ruefully - that the American film industry assume they came up with the idea of making models this way. In fact, the Supermarionation team had been doing it that way for years. The spacecraft Fireball XL5 came in a variety of different model sizes. A five-inch model was used for distant space shots, a twenty-four inch version was used for launching and landing sequences and a giant seven-foot model was built for close-ups of the various sections of the craft including scenes involving Fireball Junior. In order to make the production process more efficient, the model shots were fimed at the same time on a separate stage to the main puppetry sets. There were three stages in use - one with the permanent sets, such as Fireball interiors and Space City interiors, the model stage, and a third stage where sets for a particular story were built. Although the programmes were shot on 35mm film, in order to reduce the number of failed shots where mistakes were only picked up in the 'rushes' (when the film has been quickly developed to show the producers what was filmed the previous day), they developed a unique closed circuit TV system which enabled everyone to see what the camereman saw. Meddings built on his expertise in subsequent Anderson productions - Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, etc. His model expertise was also used in a number of James Bond movies, Superman (The Christopher Reeve version) and Tim Burton's Batman. Category:Real World